Rent is a rock opera with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. It tells a story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS...The musical is largely responsible for helping to increase the popularity of musical theater amongst the younger generation.
It won heaps of awards, including a Tony award, and in 2005 it was also made into a movie with most of the original cast members.
To be perfectly honest, I was expecting a mildly entertaining evening. I just didn't think Cork City in 2010 was necessarily the best place to see a show that was so very NYC of a few decades ago. I was willing to give it a chance though, and it paid off. What a great show. The music is catchy, and I guess it's even more famous than I'd realized because I knew a few of the songs! This was the one I knew enough to sing along with, and the one that was best performed in my opinion.
Here is another one that was really good, and now that I looked up the movie version it may even be better.
The next show that I'd love to go to is the Kodo drummers. Here is a bit about them from their website:
Exploring the limitless possibilities of the traditional Japanese drum, the taiko, Kodo are forging new directions for a vibrant living art-form... The sound of the great taiko is said to resemble a mother's heartbeat as felt in the womb, and it is no myth that babies are often lulled asleep by its thunderous vibrations... Since their debut at the Berlin Festival in 1981, Kodo have given over 3300 performances on all five continents, spending about a third of the year overseas, a third touring in Japan and a third resting and preparing new material on Sado Island.
Kodo strives to both preserve and re-interpret traditional Japanese performing arts. Beyond this, members on tours and research trips all over the globe have brought back to Sado a kaleidoscope of world music and experiences which now exerts a strong influence on the group's performances and compositions. Collaborations with other artists and composers extend right across the musical spectrum and Kodo's lack of preconceptions about its music continues to produce startling new fusion and forms.
The videos look gorgeous and sound cool. Hopefully we'll get tickets.
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